Many vehicles include a manually-operated brake, also known as the parking brake or emergency brake. Many conventional automobiles utilize a hand-operated parking brake, which may be utilized to assist in keeping a vehicle motionless while parked or backup a hydraulic brake system. Typically, a hand-actuated lever is located within the passenger compartment of the vehicle, and positioned within reach of the driver and/or passenger. The lever is connected to the parking brake mechanism, and the driver and/or passenger pulls on the lever to engage the parking brake mechanism.
Most conventional parking brake levers rotate about single pivot point. In order to ensure that a user will be able to access and actuate the parking brake lever, the path that the handle of the lever travels through must be unobstructed by other vehicle components. As a result, the passenger compartment must be designed around the parking brake lever. For example, based on human factors, the parking brake lever is often positioned between the driver seat and the front passenger seat. The center console must be designed to accommodate the parking brake lever throughout its range of motion, and thus, the path of parking brake lever limits the design of a center console, for example, by limiting the design of and/or preventing the inclusion of cupholders, an armrest, a shifter, or other components or modules in the center console. Thus, conventional parking brake levers are inefficient from a packaging perspective and limit the ability to design a compact integrated center console equipped with all the features and functionality desired by consumers and users.
Additionally, to accommodate human factors, a conventional parking brake lever is designed to be actuated by pulling the parking brake lever from a substantially horizontal position to a more vertical position. As the lever position becomes more vertical, the tension in the system increases. Furthermore, a seated user loses leverage as the lever approaches a vertical position. As a result, it may be difficult for some users to fully engage the parking brake while remaining seated.